Efficient cooling has always and will always be a limiter on the power of processors, especially as the processes used shrink and transistor density increases. Over the years we have seen heatpipes become common and watercooling move into the mainstream with the advent of all-in-one coolers. Thermal interface material has not changed much, even though we have heard of many developments nothing has been released to market. Carbon black proved to be too long in development and might be replaced by nanotube forests though there is do it yourself thermal paste doped with diamonds that you can make right now.

From there we saw a project doping thermal paste with graphene, which could provide conductivity of up to 600 W/mK once it becomes available, hopefully in sheet form for easy installation. Increasing the thermal conductivity of your TIM is a good thing, assuming that the heatsink absorbing the heat can keep up with the transfer which is what makes the news out of FrostyTech so interesting. Researchers are sandwiching a material they call K-Core Annealed Pyrolytic Graphite in between layers of aluminium and other metals to create a heatsink with a thermal conductivity of up to 1092W/mK in certain situations. It is not as simple as doping a heatsink with this new material though, it is only efficient at moving heat horizontally. Read on to find out more at FrostyTech.

"When the thermal conductivity of copper and aluminum heat spreaders just won't cut it, the future revolves around a material called Annealed Pyrolytic Graphite. Let's consider the numbers: where a solid aluminum heat spreader has a thermal conductivity of 126W/mK, the same heatspreader with an Annealed Pyrolytic Graphite core would see thermal conductivity on the order of 1092 W/mK. That's not a typo."